The Skeleton in the Grass (19 page)

“Valuable guns, Inspector. Not the thing for village lads to play around with.”

“Don't treat me as a fool, Major,” said Minchip, with an expression of weariness. “I do know something about guns, both as an ex-army man, and as a policeman. That is a perfectly workaday collection.”

“I'm not a rich man—”

Minchip leant forward and rapped out.

“You borrowed that gun. You didn't borrow it for military training. You borrowed it for the prank that Chris Keene was carrying out on the night he died.”

“No! I—”

“You're fond of accusing other people of cowardice, Major. And yet you borrowed that gun from Beecham so as to be sure it couldn't be traced back to you.”

The Major rose from his chair. His voice had become a parade-ground bellow, and his lisp had disappeared.

“How dare you accuse me of—”

The Inspector rang a little handbell on the table, and Sergeant South came in and stood, massive and impassive, by the door. The Major subsided into his chair.

“I'm accusing you of sheltering behind one of your subordinates. I'm accusing you of being
directly
involved in the planning of these nasty japes. I'm accusing you of organizing them.”

“I deny it.”

Minchip relaxed again, back into the desk chair.

“It must have seemed like a good idea. Here was a sitting butt, the Hallam family, famous throughout the country for their zeal for peace. Opposition to their pacifist views was just the thing to unite a group such as you
were setting up. And the nature of the pranks? Well, you had a group of lads poised between being boys and being men. The pranks were cleverly adapted to their situation.”

“Anything that was done was done on their initiative,” said the Major, with an air of intending to repeat that line indefinitely.

“I have talked to these chaps, Major, and I
know
. Because though you may have planned this last insult to Dennis Hallam with Chris Keene alone, he talked to the other boys. As you probably realized he would. These are country boys, not part of a military machine, in spite of your efforts. Chris was a bright, outgoing boy, who went along with all this because it was a bit of daredevil fun. He was the sort of boy—you chose him well—who would probably have flown planes, if it does come to another war. The danger involved would have been an attraction.”

“He was a great loss.”

“
You
lost him.”

The Major's voice rose again in volume.

“I had nothing to do with his killing!”

“I'm not accusing you of killing him. I keep an open mind about that. I'm accusing you of organizing the foolish and dangerous escapade that led to his death. Let me tell you how I reconstruct what happened.”

The Major assumed a posture expressive of lofty disinterest while the Inspector settled into his story.

“This was the culmination of a series of antics aimed at the Hallams, and the nastiest. It took up the rumour in the village that Dennis Hallam got out of fighting in the war by shooting himself in the foot. Those rumours were all the more persistent and bitter because I gather Mr. Hallam's elder brother, who was a more down-to-earth and popular figure, was in fact fighting in the trenches in France for three years before he was killed. The idea was to procure a joke skeleton—it being close to Hallowe'en—and paint
out its backbone. Very subtle. Very amusing.” He leant forward. “I believe you procured the skeleton.”

“I did not.”

“I don't think Chris Keene could have afforded such an object on a farm labourer's pay. And I can't find that he's been into Oxford, or any other town where it might have been bought. I shall find out. Anyway, the skeleton was bought, and the backbone painted out. The date was fixed for the night of the Wadhams' party, when you knew all the Hallams would be out. For the final, vivid touch you needed a gun, and that you heroically
borrowed,
so that there would be no unpleasant consequences for you.”

The Major said nothing, but little beads of sweat were collecting on his forehead. Accusations of cowardice, Minchip realized, touched a raw nerve.

“I don't imagine the plan envisaged the gun falling into police hands anyway. I expect you thought that when the Hallams had driven home, got the full impact of the insult to Dennis Hallam, they would retreat into the house, either to phone down here to the Sergeant, or else to talk things over, in the way these intellectuals have. Then the thing would be retrieved. Because they were to be watched. That was always part of the fun, seeing the effect. One of the earlier japes had been watched by the perpetrator and by Barry Noaks. So Chris Keene was to stick around. But because you couldn't be
sure
this was how things would work out, you borrowed the gun.”

Minchip paused.

“The gun was loaded, because you always sent the boys out on these expeditions armed. They weren't pranks, they were forays into enemy territory, limited engagements. Part of a military training. I hope you warned him to be careful, carrying the skeleton
and
the gun. I do hope you impressed that on him. Anyway, the night of the expedition came. You went off to Beecham Park, thus effectively
distancing yourself from the operation. Chris Keene set out from home, collected the skeleton and the gun from your cottage—no doubt you have a hiding place for the key—and set out along the river path to Hallam. Not the road, because there was a real danger that he might be seen. Meanwhile you, up at Beecham, were not greatly enjoying yourself.”

“I made no secret,” Coffey said sourly, “that I felt out of place, watching all those childish games.”

“Different sort of childishness, I suppose,” said Minchip maliciously. “So you, bored and out of place, decided to go and watch Keene executing your plan—watch him from the other bank of the river. It's only about a half a mile. You wouldn't be able to see the entrance to Hallam, where he was to place the skeleton, but you would be able to observe him on his way there. The General observing troop manœuvres. You watched, I suspect, but did not speak or reveal your presence.”

The Major did not speak now. He sat there, a lean, military presence, with sweat on his forehead.

“You watched Keene leave the path, go up on to the lawns, and then decide to take a rest. You saw him lay out the skeleton in the way he intended doing outside the front of the house.” Minchip paused significantly. “What happened next I'm not going to speculate on at this point. There are too many possibilities. But when it had happened, and Chris Keene was lying in a heap over the skeleton, you panicked.”

“I never panic,” said Coffey.

Minchip, who had seen
The Chocolate Soldier
, thought him faintly absurd. A parody soldier.

“Well, if you prefer it, you decided there was a need for prompt action. You crossed the bridge and retrieved the rifle. I think you might have taken the skeleton too, and dropped it in the river, only I suspect you were surprised
by something, possibly by the dog being let out at the Hall, and barking at the intruders it sensed. Or perhaps you just decided that the skeleton couldn't be traced back to you. Anyway, you took the gun, and hot-footed it back to Beecham. There you waited for a suitable opportunity, probably when the guests were beginning to leave, and then you returned the rifle to the conservatory, wiping it clean of fingerprints first. Only you were a bit hurried over that. There wasn't the opportunity to do a thorough job. One of your fingerprints remained. I've checked it against your prints on the guns I took from your cottage.”

There was a silence. It was not the silence of repose, but of intellectual activity.

“That proves nothing,” said the Major at last. “I've admitted that I borrowed the gun. Whoever wiped it could have left one of my prints on it.”

“Major, I am an experienced police officer,” said Minchip wearily. “Don't try to teach me my job . . . Well, perhaps it is time now for you to fill me in on the bit I left blank. Tell me, please, precisely what you saw that night.”

An expression of infinite contempt settled on the Major's face.

“Inspector, you have regaled me with a long farrago of conjecture and circumstantial evidence. You surely are not expecting me to admit for one moment that any of it is
true.”

“I think you'd be wise if you did, Major . . . Because I have one piece of evidence I haven't mentioned.”

“Oh?” The interrogative sounded hollow.

“As I say I've talked with all the other boys in your troop. Naturally they're not at all happy with the way things turned out. I have a signed statement from Jim Fallow—one of your prize recruits, I gather, and your favourite—that the day after the killing you told him that ‘the gun was taken care of.' You wouldn't say anything
more, just that. So if I can't get you for murder, I'll have you on a charge of suppressing evidence, or conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Think about that, Major!”

The Major thought. He seemed to be agonizingly considering his position. As he thought, his face began to glisten, and at times contorted itself briefly with rage or frustration. After a time he said:

“I should welcome refreshment.”

“I'm sure Sergeant South could rustle up a cup of tea,” said Minchip, gesturing to him, still in position beside the door. While they waited Minchip sat, his inquisitorial eye fixed on the Major. When the tea came the Major drank half of it, then put cup and saucer down on the table.

“The idea that I might be charged with the boy's murder is a nonsense,” he said, in steely tones, with the snakelike lisp once again very pronounced. “There is no motive.”

“None that I have discovered,” admitted Minchip. “If there is one, I don't despair of finding it out.”

“On the other hand, I have no more relish than the next man for being arraigned in court. And a charge of that kind would be particularly damaging to my reputation and influence.”

“Certainly it would,” agreed Minchip, mentally adding: “such as it is.”

“I will tell you what I saw.” The Major relaxed his ramrod stance, but there was no illusion of ease. He was as tense as he had been throughout the interview, so that Minchip wondered whether what was coming would be the whole truth, or even truth at all. “Much of what you said is tolerably close to the truth. I set off from Beecham shortly after nine-thirty. There was some moonlight, and I'd made it my business to know the terrain.”

“Ah—you expected to go along.”

“Shall we say I did
not
expect to enjoy a party at the Wadhams'? I thought I might enjoy watching Keene's efforts.
I got to the bank at about a quarter to ten, and by then Keene was coming along the path on the other side of the river. He was coming slowly and carefully, pointing the gun
away
from himself, as I had instructed him to. When he came to the end of the lawn things were more open, so I could see better. He paused, and then started up the bank. Then he stopped by a willow tree—not to rest, but to reconnoitre, as he had been trained to do on such an exercise. There was no light on on that side of the house, but you could just hear a dog barking. Keene rightly delayed going on. Instead he laid out the skeleton as he intended doing when he got to the house. Then he took up the gun, and was about to place it in position, pointing at the foot—”

“Yes?”

“When he was set upon—by a man who must have been standing in the cover of the willow.”

“I take it you could not see who it was?”

“Naturally not. If I hadn't
known
it was Keene I could not have recognized
him
. In the moonlight they were merely shapes.”

“But you are sure it was a man?”

“I assumed it was. The shape was right for a man. The fight was brief but fierce.”

“Women wear trousers these days.”

“Very few women in this part of the world do, I'm glad to say.”

“And in the course of the struggle the gun went off?”

“Yes. It went off and Chris fell immediately. The other figure knelt by the body and examined it. Then it ran away as fast as it could in the dark.”

“Which way?”

“Towards the house and the proper road into Chowton.”

“I see . . .” Minchip considered. Thus far, he thought, the Major had probably been telling the truth. “And then you went over the bridge and got the gun?”

“Yes. And made sure that Keene really was dead. There was no doubt about that at all. While I was taking the gun from his hand, a dog was let out up at the house, and I made my way quickly back across the river.”

Minchip narrowly avoided saying “Panic.” But there was something, he felt sure, that the Major was holding back on. Was it a fact, or something he conjectured?

“And you really had no idea who the attacker was?” he asked.

“Naturally not,” said the Major, shrugging. “In the moonlight one would have had to have been very close to recognize anybody. I assumed it was one of the Hallams.”

“O-oh! Why?”

“It's their house. It was their miserable cowardice that was being exposed.”

“But they were all at the party.”

“They could have made their way back as well as I. They could have expected that advantage would be taken of their well-advertised absence from the house to take further action against them. I knew that Oliver Hallam had been walking in the garden at Beecham at some point in the evening. I learnt later that Hallam himself had disappeared for a long period.”

“But why would they have waited
there
?”

Minchip caught himself suddenly up. It would have been natural for a Hallam to wait near the house, but there were people who would have known that Keene would be coming by the river path.